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Noticias de Venezuela Estado Nueva Esparta por Eladio Rodulfo Gonzalez, Venezuela Local News Articles, Local News Headlines, Local News TodayTue, 14 Aug 2018 13:26:10 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8https://www.noticiasdenuevaesparta.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/cropped-Avatar-de-Noticias-de-Nueva-Esparta-28AGO15-32x32.pngVenezuelaNewshttps://www.noticiasdenuevaesparta.com
3232128500969Venezuela crisis: Maduro to curb fuel subsidieshttps://www.noticiasdenuevaesparta.com/venezuela-crisis-maduro-to-curb-fuel-subsidies/
Tue, 14 Aug 2018 13:26:10 +0000https://www.noticiasdenuevaesparta.com/venezuela-crisis-maduro-to-curb-fuel-subsidies/Venezuela’s president has said its subsidised fuel prices should rise, to stop smugglers cheating the country out of billions of dollars. “Gasoline must be sold at an international price to stop smuggling to Colombia and [...]

A fuel price rise in 1989 caused deadly riots in the capital, Caracas.

What’s behind the move?

Venezuela’s economy is in freefall, with the International Monetary Fund predicting inflation rates will reach a million percent this year – but the price of fuel has barely changed.

The price of a litre of petrol in Venezuela currently stands at 1 bolivar. On the black market, Venezuelans pay more than 4m bolivares for one US dollar.

That means that for the equivalent of one dollar, Venezuelans can fill the tank of a medium-sized car about 720 times.

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Smuggling the subsidised fuel from Venezuela into neighbouring countries, where prices are much higher, is big business.

Venezuela loses $18bn to fuel smuggling annually, according to government figures. President Maduro says adapting Venezuelan fuel prices to international levels will stamp out smuggling.

The move is part of a wider plan to increase government revenue in the face of falling oil production, Venezuela’s main export income.

Will all Venezuelans have to pay full whack now?

No, according to President Maduro “only those individuals who don’t answer the call to register will have to pay fuel at international prices”.

The president said that all Venezuelans who hold the “Fatherland ID”, a government-issued identity card introduced by his administration in 2017, will continue to receive “direct subsidies” for “about two years”.

However, many Venezuelans opposed to Mr Maduro’s government have refused to get the ID cards, alleging they are used by officials to keep tabs on them.

The price rise is therefore expected to hit opponents of President Maduro in greater numbers than those who support him.

President Maduro said he would announce further details of how the new subsidies scheme would work in the coming days. It is expected to come into effect on 20 August.

What’s the ‘Fatherland ID’?

President Maduro introduced the new ID card in January 2017 arguing it would serve to make his socialist government’s social programmes more effective.

Getting the ID is free and voluntary for anyone over 15 but those who apply have to answer a series of questions about their socio-economic status and what state benefits, if any, they are receiving.

According to government figures, by January 2018, 16.5 million Venezuelans out of 31.5 million citizens had applied for a “Fatherland ID”.

Only those who are in possession of the ID can apply to receive subsidised food parcels and other state benefits.

Government critics opposed the introduction of the Fatherland ID from the start, arguing that there was no need for it as Venezuelans already had government-issued ID cards.

They said that it was a way to restrict the hand-out of state benefits to government supporters. They also fear that the government uses the Fatherland ID to collect information on citizens.

Will the new measure end smuggling?

Unlikely, as smugglers who hold a Fatherland ID or apply for one will still be able to buy fuel at rock bottom prices and sell it at a massive profit in Colombia and other countries.

Some opposition politicians fear that the measure will be used as a way to introduce petrol rationing through the back door by limiting the amount each individual can buy on his Fatherland ID. But so far no limits on the amount of petrol people can buy have been announced.

Why are fuel price rises so controversial?

Venezuelans are very car-dependant. It is not unusual for families to have multiple cars and for them to drive long distances to work.

For those who cannot afford cars getting around has become increasingly difficult. Public transport is poor and has worsened in recent years as a lack of maintenance has led to a shortage of public buses.

Venezuelans complain about having to queue to get on trucks previously used to transport livestock. Many spend hours commuting to and from work.

A rise in the price of fuel would not just hit those who drive their own cars as companies running bus routes would likely pass on the price hike to their customers.

There have been very few fuel price rises since 1989 when such a rise – amid other austerity measures – sparked massive riots in Caracas and its environs.

The president at the time sent troops into the streets to quell the riots and hundreds of people were killed.

The incident, known as the Caracazo, has haunted Venezuelans ever since.

What’s at the root of Venezuela’s economic crisis?

Venezuela is rich in oil. It has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. But it is arguably precisely this wealth that is also at the root of many of its economic problems.

Venezuela’s oil revenues account for about 95% of its export earnings. This means that when oil prices were high, a lot of money was flowing into the coffers of the Venezuelan government.

When socialist President Hugo Chávez was in power, from February 1999 until his death in March 2013, he used some of that money to finance generous social programmes to reduce inequality and poverty.

But when oil prices dropped sharply in 2014, the government was suddenly faced with a gaping hole in its finances and had to cut back on some of its most popular programmes.

]]>20360A Fox Host Tried to Compare Denmark With Venezuela, Sparking Danish Outragehttps://www.noticiasdenuevaesparta.com/a-fox-host-tried-to-compare-denmark-with-venezuela-sparking-danish-outrage/
Tue, 14 Aug 2018 13:26:04 +0000https://www.noticiasdenuevaesparta.com/a-fox-host-tried-to-compare-denmark-with-venezuela-sparking-danish-outrage/A Fox Business host elicited angry and amused reactions when she compared Denmark to Venezuela, on the basis that both are socialist. Trish Regan said Sunday that “Denmark, like Venezuela, has stripped people of their [...]

A Fox Business host elicited angry and amused reactions when she compared Denmark to Venezuela, on the basis that both are socialist.

Trish Regan said Sunday that “Denmark, like Venezuela, has stripped people of their opportunities,” and claimed that “no-one wants to work” in the northern European country. To which the Danish finance minister, Kristian Jensen, responded: “11 places better than U.S. in OECD statistics. We are working much more than Americans and at the same time ranking as the world’s best in work-life balance. You should come to Denmark if you dare be confronted with facts.”

The quality of Regan’s facts was widely questioned by others, too. For a start, it should be noted that Denmark practices free-market capitalism, although, like other Scandinavian countries, it does have hefty, taxpayer-funded social programs. As one of the 20 richest countries in the world, the situation in Denmark is also a far cry from the instability and violence plaguing Venezuela.

“Denmark’s freebies, well they’re anything but free,” Regan said, citing a federal tax rate of 56% as evidence that “everyone in Denmark is working for the government.”

As noted by the Danish edition of The Local, Denmark does have the highest taxes of any developed country, but the average income tax rate is little more than a third of earnings.

In 2013, Regan claimed, “only three of the country’s 98 municipalities actually had more than half the population working.” Denmark actually had a higher employment rate than the U.S. did at that time and, as pointed out by Bloomberg, its current international ranking for employment rates is eighth, to the U.S.’s 20th.

Here’s the Danish ambassador to the U.S., Lars Gert Lose:

If you’re wondering about his reference to cupcake cafes, that’s because Regan cited “one person who studied Denmark” as saying: “Nowadays, all the kids graduating from school in Denmark, they want to start cupcake cafes.”

Regan’s wider point was that Denmark’s system of free education, with students receiving grants to study, means “nobody graduates from school… What’s supposed to take you five years is taking everybody six-plus years…That’s the reality of socialism.”

There is indeed a phenomenon in Denmark of some young people staying at university and repeatedly changing courses, because they would rather not move on to a world of employment. In 2015, the government moved to combat the trend by forcing universities to cut down on the average studying time, or face the loss of government funding.

]]>20358Maduro’s Petro cryptocurrency will be an official currency in Venezuela – like the Bolivarhttps://www.noticiasdenuevaesparta.com/maduros-petro-cryptocurrency-will-be-an-official-currency-in-venezuela-like-the-bolivar/
Tue, 14 Aug 2018 13:26:03 +0000https://www.noticiasdenuevaesparta.com/maduros-petro-cryptocurrency-will-be-an-official-currency-in-venezuela-like-the-bolivar/In a bid to save Venezuela from hyperinflation, embattled President Nicolás Maduro has mandated that his Petro cryptocurrency become the nation’s second official currency. By August 20, Venezuela will have two new official currencies: the “sovereign [...]

]]>In a bid to save Venezuela from hyperinflation, embattled President Nicolás Maduro has mandated that his Petro cryptocurrency become the nation’s second official currency.

By August 20, Venezuela will have two new official currencies: the “sovereign Bolivar” and the Petro cryptocurrency – valued equally and supposedly interchangeable.

“As of next Monday, Venezuela will have a second accounting unit based on […] the value of the Petro.” Maduro declared in a televised address (spotted by Sputnik). “It will be a second accounting unit of the Republic and will begin operations as a mandatory accounting unit of our PDVSA oil industry.”

The Petro is Maduro’s pet project – a cryptocurrency backed by barrels of oil. It’s been speculated that his plan has been to skirt harsh international sanctions imposed on his government by conducting international trade with Petro rather than the Bolivar.

Well, now we have confirmation: not only will the Petro have to be used by the state oil industry, it’s also to be pegged to the new “sovereign Bolivar,” meaning the Petro will technically the official stablecoin of Venezuela.

Maduro confirmed that the valuations of each currency will come from the Central Bank (CBV). He also teased a new salary system built for paying wages in Petro, and a new pricing guidelines for goods and services to match, but no real details were given.

The new Bolivar is also just a reissue of the old one, but with a fancy stamp on it, and less value. Citizens will be able to claim one sovereign Bolivar for every 100,000 old-school Bolivar they own.

Venezuela’s hyperinflation index reached one million recently. Bloombergreporting that a coffee, once worth just 450 Bolivar, now costs one million. The Bolivar is so worthless, in fact, that one million Bolivar is the equivalent of roughly 30 American cents.

In another world, we might have celebrated the adoption of a stablecoin like the Petro. Instead, all we can do is hope that it doesn’t make things worse for Venezuelan people – surely they’ve suffered enough.

]]>20357As Venezuela disintegrates, a new breed of pirates threatens the Caribbeanhttps://www.noticiasdenuevaesparta.com/as-venezuela-disintegrates-a-new-breed-of-pirates-threatens-the-caribbean/
Tue, 14 Aug 2018 13:26:01 +0000https://www.noticiasdenuevaesparta.com/as-venezuela-disintegrates-a-new-breed-of-pirates-threatens-the-caribbean/In the flickers of sunlight off the cobalt blue of the Caribbean sea, the vessel appeared as a cut on the horizon. It sailed closer. But the crew of the Asheena took no heed. “We [...]

In the flickers of sunlight off the cobalt blue of the Caribbean sea, the vessel appeared as a cut on the horizon. It sailed closer. But the crew of the Asheena took no heed.

“We be lookin’ for our red fish as normal, thinkin’ they be fishin’, too,” said Jimmy Lalla, 36, part of the crew that had dropped lines in Trinidadian waters last April a few miles off the lawless Venezuelan coast.

The other vessel kept approaching. “They be needin’ help?” Lalla recalled wondering as it pulled aside their 28-foot pirogue. A short, sinewy man jumped on board, shouting in Spanish and waving a pistol.

Political and economic crises are exploding from Venezuela to Nicaragua to Haiti, sparking anarchy and criminality. As the rule of law breaks down, certain spots in the Caribbean, experts say, are becoming more dangerous than they’ve been in years.

Often, observers say, the acts of villainy appear to be happening with the complicity or direct involvement of corrupt officials – particularly in the waters off collapsing Venezuela.

Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post

Deoraj Balsingh, 58, is the father of a fishing boat captain who was kidnapped by Venezuelan pirates on the waters between Venezuela and Trinidad.

Deoraj Balsingh, 58, is the father of a fishing boat captain who was kidnapped by Venezuelan pirates on the waters between Venezuela and Trinidad.

(Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post)

“It’s criminal chaos, a free-for-all, along the Venezuelan coast,” said Jeremy McDermott, co-director of Insight Crime, a nonprofit organization that studies organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Comprehensive data on piracy is largely lacking for Latin America and the Caribbean. But a two-year study by the nonprofit Oceans Beyond Piracy recorded 71 major incidents in the region in 2017 – including robberies of merchant vessels and attacks on yachts – up 163 percent from the previous year. The vast majority happened in Caribbean waters.

The incidents range from glorified muggings on the high seas to barbaric attacks worthy of 17th-century pirates.

In April, for instance, masked men boarded four Guyanese fishing boats floating 30 miles off the coast of the South American nation. The crews, according to survivors’ accounts, were doused with hot oil, hacked with machetes and thrown overboard, then their boats were stolen. Of the 20 victims, five survived; the rest died or were left unaccounted for.

Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post

Fishermen on July 12, 2018, ride in a boat where some have been either robbed and/or killed by Venezuelan pirates or had their livelihoods of fishing affected by the increasing criminality of piracy on the waters between Venezuela and Trinidad.

Fishermen on July 12, 2018, ride in a boat where some have been either robbed and/or killed by Venezuelan pirates or had their livelihoods of fishing affected by the increasing criminality of piracy on the waters between Venezuela and Trinidad.

(Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post)

David Granger, the president of Guyana, decried the attack as a “massacre.” Guyanese authorities have suggested that it could have been linked to gang violence in neighboring Suriname.

“They said they would take the boat and that everyone should jump overboard,” survivor Deonarine Goberdhan, 47, told Reuters. After being beaten and thrown in the sea, he said, “I tried to keep my head above water so I could get air. I drank a lot of salt water. I looked to the stars and moon. I just hoped and prayed.”

There have been reports of piracy over the past 18 months near Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti and St. Lucia. But nowhere has the surge been more notable, analysts say, than off the coast of Venezuela.

An economic crisis in the South American country has sent inflation soaring toward 1 million percent, making food and medicine scarce. Malnutrition is spreading; disease is rampant; water and power grids are failing from a lack of trained staff and spare parts. Police and military are abandoning their posts as their paychecks become nearly worthless. Under the socialist government of President Nicolás Maduro, repression and corruption have increased.

The conditions are compelling some Venezuelans to take desperate action.

One Venezuelan port official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to address official corruption, said that Venezuelan coast guard officers have been boarding anchored vessels and demanding money and food. He said commercial ships, in response, are increasingly anchoring farther off the coast, and turning off their motors and lights to avoid being seen at night.

It doesn’t always work.

In July, one vessel from the local company Conferry, which offers freight services to nearby Venezuelan islands, was raided by three men brandishing knives and guns near the port of Guanta. Four crew members were left tied up for hours while food and electronics were stolen.

In January in Puerto La Cruz, also on the northeast coast, seven armed burglars boarded an anchored tanker. They tied up the vessel’s guard on duty, then robbed its stores. Similar incidents have been reported in the months since, according to the Commercial Crime Services division of the London-based International Chamber of Commerce.

Trinidad and Tobago, an island nation of 1.4 million people within eyeshot of the Venezuelan coast, has long worried about crime emanating from its neighbor. Since the 1990s, drug smugglers have shipped marijuana and Colombian cocaine from Venezuelan ports to Trinidad, and from there to other Caribbean countries and beyond.

Trafficking and piracy, locals say, have recently been expanding and becoming more violent. Five Trinidadian fishermen in the southern port of Cedros, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing fear for their safety, said in interviews that they had witnessed a burst of Venezuelan boats arriving in recent months smuggling military-issue guns as well as drugs, women and exotic animals.

“Sometimes, those Venezuelans are willing to trade the guns and animals for food,” said one 41-year-old fisherman.

Another fisherman said he was held for hours in January by Spanish-speaking pirates while his brother was contacted to pay a $500 ransom.

A Trinidadian coast guard vessel was dispatched to patrol the waters this year after several high-profile incidents of smuggling and piracy. But locals say the criminals simply wait until the patrol passes, and then they act.

Trinidadian authorities did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Opposition politicians, however, are decrying a surge in piracy. They also say that the flow of automatic weapons from Venezuela – some of which appear to be coming from military stores – is contributing to a swelling homicide rate in Trinidad.

“This reminds me of how the problems started off the coast of eastern Africa,” said Roodal Moonilal, a lawmaker from the opposition United National Congress party, referring to a sharp rise in ship hijackings off the coast of lawless Somalia several years ago. “What we’re seeing – the piracy, the smuggling – it’s the result of Venezuela’s political and economic collapse.”

For those who make their living plying the warm waters of the Caribbean, piracy is a new source of fear. These days, locals are fishing closer to shore, and sometimes at night, to avoid the risk of attacks.

On the April afternoon when the Asheena was boarded, Lalla said, he was terrified.

“The man talkin’ Spanish, he point the gun at me, then he point at the water. I be knowin’. He be wantin’ that I jump,” he said.

So he leaped overboard. The first mate – Narendra Sankar, 22 – followed him moments later. The men were swimming toward an offshore oil rig when Sankar suffered a cramp.

“I had already reached the rig, so I had to be jumpin’ back in, to help him,” Lalla said. “He was goin’ to be drownin’.”

They watched as the pirates seized their vessel, outfitted with two expensive outboard motors. Their captain, Andell Plummer, was still aboard. The two men were rescued from the water by a passing fishing boat. When they reported the attack to authorities, Lalla said, they were told: “We have no boat to go after them; we can do nothing.”

There has been no word of Plummer since, the men say. Trinidad’s Ministry of National Security did not respond to a request for comment about his case.

“My boy, they take him!” said the captain’s father, Deoraj Balsingh, 58, standing by a muddy Trinidadian dock surrounded by boats.

“We don’t know,” Balsingh said. “We don’t know if he livin’ or if he dead.”

The Washington Post’s Rachelle Krygier in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.